The thing is, the songwriters have already been paid - by the radio station. If it's BBC radio, we've already paid for that music out of our annual licence fee, or it's a commercial station with adverts. Every person in that store has the right to listen to that station already as the broadcast fees have already been paid.
Now that it's suddenly being able to be listened to while on a store premises, it's a 'new' public performance and more money needs to be paid. It's double dipping for the same performance.
Exactly. This is no different than a farmer selling his produce to a grocery store, and then charging the store's customers who buy his produce for eating it.
So MS doesn't have any motivation to drive users back to IE? MS doesn't have a history of screwing with technologies created by others so that technology will either be not used, or used only on Windows? Tell me you really believe that....
And MS couldn't have created the plugin at the user level rather than at a system wide level? You're really telling me that MS just sort of accidentally created this plugin system wide rather than at the user level? It's just unintended consequences that the plugin just happened to be next to impossible to remove by the average user....
If you really believe all that there's a bridge in Massachusetts that I'll sell to you for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah, this is all Mozilla's fault. They didn't proactively stop MS from messing with their users, so they're the ones at fault. Not MS. They're just doing what they always do. Nah. MS shouldn't be held responsible for that. Anything MS can do is always the right thing to do.
The unstated premise behind your logic is really something. MS never does anything wrong. It's always somebody else's fault when MS is the one screwing with users of third party software.
Even then much of what you're able to hear depends on the quality of your amp and speakers and how much distortion they add.
Play a good recording through a lousy audio system and much of the sound quality is lost. Play that same recording with a good, distortion-free amp, and quality speakers designed to work with that amp, and the music comes alive.
You're setting up a straw man and then knocking it down.
MS has both a history of malicious behavior, and motivation to insert some of their technology into Firefox which they can then later withdraw to make Firefox look bad so they could drive users back towards IE.
Adobe has no motivation to pull their Flash technology out of Firefox. What would be the point? So they could drive users and web site creators towards Silverlight and thus cut their own throats?
Besides, Adobe didn't/doesn't install their Flash plugin into Firefox without specific user request, nor do they ever disable the user's ability to uninstall/disable it. MS stuffed their plugin into Firefox through their own update service and then disabled the ability of the user to get rid of it. That is not behavior that will generate trust. MS does not have the right to do that. Do they have the capability? Yes. But just because you can do something doesn't make it right, nor the right thing to do.
Doing what MS did is engaging in the type of behavior that creates distrust and suspicion in anyone who sees what they did, as if they actually needed to engage in more of it be distrusted, disliked, and seen as manipulative.
As your post so eloquently says, you've never been bullied. You've just seen it, and years later seen that people have recovered enough to lead a "normal" life.
That's a real statement of ignorance. How do you know what that person "could" have been without being bullied? How do you know they still don't suffer from the effects even though YOU think, from a great distance, that they have fully recovered.
And, no, not everyone is a bully. Yes, we all have disputes with other people. Yes, we all have people we don't like. But, everyone bullies someone? That's a large stretch.
As far as Columbine, all the kids admitted that those guys were bullied on a pretty constant basis. Does that mean that everyone would/could respond the same way? No. I didn't even come close to saying that. I pointed to it as one of the possible outcomes from extended bullying. To ignore it as a possible outcome is stupid.
I can also see that you have never been bullied/abused on a regular basis. You have no idea of the anger that can fester. You've never experienced it yet think you are competent to understand it. I can assure you, from personal experience, that if you've never lived what some of the victims go through, you can never come close to understanding the effects.
Here you go again with your assumptions. How can any one person keep on making so many wrong assumptions?
What makes you assume that my granddaughter was "teased"? Hell, every chance I get I tease her. That wasn't the problem. She was harassed and bullied unmercifully. It went on for a long time. It lasted for months and happened every day. There was no "teasing" involved.
Also, don't try to instruct me on what happens when someone is bullied. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My older brother constantly bullied me my entire life until I slapped his face and wanted to fight him when I was in my 20's. I then moved away and stopped all contact with him. In response he wrote letters telling me that I am everything that's wrong with America.
When I was 3, and my brother was more twice my age and size, he bullied me into pissing on an electric fence. You don't know what pain is until you've done that. It's something you never forget. I also can't tell you how many times he would bully me into doing something and then go tell the old man what I'd done so I'd get whipped.
When I was in the 1st grade my old man forced me to shit my pants by refusing to stop somewhere so I could use the bathroom, and then tried to force me to get out of the car and mingle with my classmates at our destination. That same year he also whipped me and threw me out of the house one night for telling him that there's no difference between using dice and spinner to play a board game. If using dice was gambling then so was using a spinner. They both were a "game" of chance. Yes, I really did have that conceptual argument with him at 7 years of age.
He'd also laugh and have a good time watching my brother bully me. Then he'd punish me when I'd fight back. He'd punish me every time I fought back, even when a bully's parents said he'd gotten what he deserved because they'd seen what happened.
I know very well the effects of abuse and bullying. I've lived them. I also know the amount of effort and length of time involved in getting over it.
My entire family set me up to be a victim, just like what's happened to my granddaughter. So, when you say victims don't really need extra support and protection you haven't a clue. You don't know how many times as a kid I'd cry myself to sleep at night wishing someone, somewhere, cared enough to help me. You have never seen the massive depression in my granddaughters eyes either.
So, do I know enough about the problem of bullying and vicious harassment to understand the problem? You bet I do. I know exactly what the victims go through. I know exactly how cruel people can be and to what depths of viciousness they will sink.
The punishment needs to fit the crime. You try screwing up someone's life just because you enjoy being an asshole? You pay big time. It's only fair and equitable. It's justice. It is anything but fair that the victims are the only ones paying a price while their abusers walk the streets and are free do the same thing to others.
Lastly, what makes you think I think we need more laws? I've never said that. I've said we need to punish the bullies and stop the harassment. All that takes is the enforcement of our existing laws. All that requires is that people care enough act, to stand up and be counted and not just brush aside the bullying and vicious harassment that goes on as a minor problem. The damages are real. They can last for many years.
Stop assuming psychological harm isn't as damaging as physical harm. In many ways it's far worse. And, yes, it's a cold, brutal world out there, and the victims of bullying and abuse know that far better than anyone else. They also need more help in dealing with it than anyone who has never lived in their shoes.
An entire generation or more has been raised to believe in its own innate and unearned importance...
That is quite a sweeping generalization. I am not sure which generation you are referring to, but if it is my own (I am 23) I would be inclined to disagree with you via a caveat. I will agree that, in general, there are quite a few folks who fit the description that you just posted. Nonetheless, I would caveat that there are some of us, in every generation (not just my own) that know without a doubt that we do not have unlimited entitlement and rights. There are even some of us that know that the Law is not an institution to be used for the abuse of personal gain. In fact, some of us, in every generation, outright abhor the strange exponential increase in the complexity of the Law in general.
So, in principle, I agree that there are quite a few folk out there that think the way you mentioned, using the term, 'an entire generation' really does disrespect those of us that try to remain rational, calm, pragmatic, and realistic. Please, don't lump entire groups of people together as if we are all just walking stereotypes to be typified into a particular Aristotelian category. There are always shades of gray.
Great post. I'd mod you up, but I'm active in this discussion.
I'm glad to see there at least a few young people like you coming down the pike. You belong to what seems to be a dying breed amongst the sweeping sense of entitlement that so many young people have, but every once in a while I am very pleasantly surprised when one of you announce yourselves.
Your parents should, rightly, be very proud of their child.
And so to prove your superiority and show just how bad "baby boomers" are you do exactly what you accuse them of doing. You make large generalizations that have nothing to do with reality--all baby boomers are selfish jerks--as the only reason they could disagree with you on global warming is because they're idiots and selfish, and you couldn't possibly be wrong.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is a lot of people that don't buy into global warming, including a lot of scientists. Of course, you'll say they are just selfish baby boomers who have been bought off, but again, that's just another generalization on your part because you have no proof of that whatsoever.
So, you feel sorry for her, but don't think she deserves any protection from bullying and vicious personal harassment that affects her far more than someone who's never been abused. Like I said, you're a real class act. In your eyes bullies and assholes are deserving of more protection than their victims. You do know that's a classic sign of an abuser don't you?
Also, once again, your assumptions are completely wrong about me, personally. Both my wife and I have turned her dad, and her mother, in to the cops and DSHS as her mother suffers from battered wife syndrome and we wanted to get custody of her and her 5 siblings.
Nobody in the legal system did anything. The end result of making legal complaints was to make it so we couldn't see our granddaughter for a few years. Her parents wouldn't let her, or her siblings, get anywhere near us if they knew we were in town. I still can't see my grandkids 5 years later because of her dad's hatred for me, but at least my wife gets to see them once in a blue moon now.
You sure do make a lot of assumptions. How you can so consistently make wrong ones is pretty amazing. You must practice a lot.
Your concepts of right and wrong and belief that morality should be legislated cause me fear and anxiety. My lawyer will be contacting you shortly. Hope you like working at gas stations.
Nice straw man.
I never said morality, or even concepts of right and wrong, should be legislated as that is impossible. What I've been saying is that behavior that is harmful to people should be punished. If parents won't/can't teach their children that such behavior is completely unacceptable then the law needs to punish it for the good of society.
We already have many laws with this thought in mind. Assault and battery laws are just one example. This idea that psychological damage is less harmful to the victim than physical damage is completely bogus. In many cases psychological harm lasts far, far longer than the effects any physical injury, and is much harder to overcome.
Ummm.... As I'm a grandparent I've obviously had at least as much, if not more, experience raising kids than you have. I've seen behavior patterns instilled many times over.
And, yes, it's a parent's responsibility to raise their children to respect other people. If their kids do not respect others, it's learned behavior just like it's learned behavior when they do learn to respect others from their parent's training.
This training has to start early in a child's life and be unfailingly consistent. You can't wait until they reach the teenage years, teach the lessons haphazardly, and expect to get any kind of results.
Hell, when I was in my teens I rejected a lot of my parents values and started partying, but I never "unlearned" the idea that other people are to be treated the same I want to be treated. That's just basic, common decency that must be learned at a young age, and those are the values that a child doesn't reject as they become a part of their core character.
It's only those mixed messages that parents send their kids that are normally rejected. I know that for a fact from my experience raising step children and from my own life.
Suspend her from school! Send her to summer school! Whack her with a misdemeanor and community service!
Instead, you'd rather send her to jail, make her pay $10,000, and have a felony convicion?
Let me tell you, I had my share of bullies picking on me in school, particularly middle school or freshman of High School. I fucking hated it, and it could be bad sometimes. I don't want them to have convictions on their records for things they did when they were 15. I'm friends with some of them now!
I realize things have changed somewhat with the Internet and stuff like that, but c'mon, don't be a cold bastard shithead.
Yeah, the poor bullies need to be protected. Just think, they might have their own lives ruined, as well as making many other kids lives miserable.
As to you being friends with people who bullied you when you were a kid, that's well and good. But, what about those kids who never recover from the bullying? That is not an uncommon result. How about those that get so sick of it that they start killing? Columbine ring a bell?
This is not something that is "victimless" or has only temporary results.
That this person caused major damage to granddaughter. Yes, she was vulnerable because of her father, but that doesn't make the damage done to her any less real. It makes it worse.
Anyway, I guess what you're saying is that if a kid is so stupid as to have chosen an abusive parent that they should be just left to suffer. The fact that they have been set up to be victim by their own parent lets all other assholes who abuse them off the hook.
Tell that to the cops/prosecutors and see how far you get. They, not me, are the ones claiming that the "old" laws don't/won't work. I, personally, don't see a need for new laws and said nothing about us needing new laws, but I do see a need for the legal system to be used to stop online harassment.
I was simply replying to the idea that parents are going to be the resource that will stop the harassment. Parents have the responsibility, but many completely shirk it, to teach their children to behave decently.
The only reason deterrence doesn't work is because it's not applied consistently.
If everyone knew that every time they indulged in negative behavior they would get punished for it they would avoid it. However, if they see lots of people getting away with the negative behavior and a only a few being punished for it, then no, they won't think that they will be punished and so deterrence doesn't work.
It's well-established fact that occasional punishment only increases bad behavior as the perp always thinks that THIS time they won't get caught and punished. That doesn't mean that deterrence doesn't work. It only means that "occasional" deterrence doesn't work.
See my post above. These attacks go far beyond "spreading rumors". They are highly personal, vicious attacks that do a lot of harm to the person being attacked.
I guess you don't observe much of what goes on in our society these days. One of my granddaughters has been a victim of this type of harassment and it's done her a lot of harm.
She's a shy, mild-mannered, nice kid who doesn't go out of her way to harass others, or do other people harm. She also is not a very self confident person as her father is an abusive asshole. So, the vicious personal attacks that came her way really harmed her. Her entire personality changed for months. She didn't want to go to school. Her grades suffered badly. It's been more than a year now and she still isn't back to the person she was before all this started.
What did she do wrong? Nothing. Some guy that another girl liked, but was not dating, started paying attention to her. As shy as she is I know, as would anyone else who knows her, that she wasn't the assertive one in the relationship with the guy in question. However, none of that mattered to the other girl. This gal, who wasn't even dating the guy, was going to do her best to destroy my granddaughter just because he began talking to her.
There has to be consequences for this type of negative behavior. Nobody has the right to screw with someone else's life like that. The nasty girl's parent's won't do anything. The school system won't do anything. I'd get thrown in jail for kicking the little bitch's ass. So, what's left to deter this type of behavior? The legal system is the only avenue left.
Harassment online should be no different than harassment offline. If I send an email threating to break someone's leg how is that any different than a message over the phone or in person? Why do people make a big deal that otherwise illegal behavior is somehow legal online? Intimidation, coercion and other forms of threatening behavior are all readily accepted as illegal offline, this case has absolutely no defense in the first amendment (and I'm usually the one defending it).
Why do people get upset about harassment over the internet? Because it's way out of line. It's rampant and the police/prosecutors refuse to do anything about it. It's also worse online because of the difficulty in finding out who is responsible for it.
It's much riskier to walk up to a person and begin insulting them than it is to make online slurs as in person the possibility of getting your ass kicked for being a jackass is much, much greater. The perceived anonymity of the internet creates an atmosphere in which assholes are much more likely to think there will be no consequences for their behavior and so cross behavioral lines they wouldn't cross in person.
I agree with you that this is no laughing matter. It's libel, and defamation of character. And, I DO agree that this girl should be punished if this went on ruthlessly for months.
But a felony conviction for a kid? She'll live with that on her criminal record for the rest of her life and she'll have a hard time getting good work..
This girl's parents should have thought about this. It's their responsibility to teach their kid decent values and respect for other people. Why should she not have her life ruined when that's exactly what she tried to do someone else? If she has so little respect for other people that she engaged in this behavior at her age, then what makes you think she will ever learn differently unless she suffers some pretty severe consequences?
She's old enough now to know the difference between right and wrong, and she obviously doesn't care about it. That's something that needs to be learned early in life--by the age of 5 or 6, or it's often never learned at all.
I'm not so sure laws needed to be made for something that amounts to name calling. If the name calling extends to harassment we already have laws in place.
The only fix to this problem is proper parrenting and teaching kids how to respect and really communicate with one another. Even removing anonymity doesn't fix this problem (and I am completely against any attempt to remove it). I am aware that Anecdotes aren't evidence but I've been "bullied" online (if you want to call it that) by girls who went to the same school as I, they were well aware I knew who they were and they knew who I was. How did I respond? I walked up to them the next day and kindly asked them to continue calling me names now that we are face to face. They just slithered away muttering half apologies and never messaged me again.
How is this supposed to work when the parents are the ones teaching their kids to be assholes? My son-in-law actively teaches his kids to be assholes. He thinks it great to be an asshole and thinks his kids need to follow in his footsteps.
Add to parents like him those parents who just don't care enough about their kids to discipline them, and then further add those parents who think that anyone who crosses their precious snowflake, even when their snowflake is the problem, is there to be abused. This isn't even taking into account those parents who are too afraid to discipline their kids.
Society has long since degenerated past the point of being able to trust all, maybe even most, parents to want/be_able to instill positive character traits in their kids. I hate the idea of more government, but there has to be some way of making sure there are consequences for negative behavior as there are most definitely a lot of parents who will never do that job.
Why should I pay for using the cloud when I need to have local backup anyway? The cloud just an extra expense, with no added advantage. It makes no sense to me, especially when a high percentage of system admins admit to acting less than ethically in their daily job-related activities.
Haven't read the rest the previous discussion but...
of course there are good evidence based reasons for abstinence. The problem is that these are not the reasons that religions use. The reason they use is that "god says so".
If the reasons were known, instead of divine edicts, we could modify our moral positions when conditions change. For instance, today there is no reason any woman who does not wish too should get pregnant. We have extrememly effective birth control these days -- a very recent development. Our religious morals have not caught up.
In a very backwards form of reasoning, many religions now say that birth control is immoral.... only because it would invalidate the moral rules that they have internalized without question for so long.
summary: of course most "moral values" have reasonable evidence based rationales. The problem comes when we do not understand that these are real reasons, and instead attribute the moral rules it some absolute rigid moral standard.
Ummmm.... In my experience, you're wrong about your assumptions, and so was the original poster to whom I replied. I grew up going to a Christian church and not once were moral standards such as no extramarital sex, i.e. the 10 Commandments, ever said to exist "just because God said so".
I learned, from the church as a kid and agree with it as an adult, that God's rules have always been for protecting those people who follow Him from the consequences that come from initiating evil/immoral actions. Take a look at the last 6 commandments and you'll see what I mean. They are designed to keep us out of a lot of trouble with our fellow man. Follow those six principles and you'll never find yourself in a situation in which you are causing a problem with anyone you know.
The first 4 are similar, but much harder for someone who doesn't believe in God to understand that the same rationale lies behind them too, as they define the individual's relationship with God.
Are there some churches that do say that their moral standards are there "just because God says so"? Probably, as so many people seem to have that mistaken perspective. However, I've never been in one that actually taught that. I'd also say that any church that says God's standards are arbitrary doesn't really understand who God is.
Or one religion may call it morally wrong to have sex out of wedlock while another may not. These are morals because they are taken on faith without thought or justification - the religion simply says so and it's believed. But you certainly cannot say that sex out of wedlock is a universal truth.
Hmmm.... No moral or ethical problems with sex outside of marriage? Any acceptance of sex outside of marriage being a moral or ethical problem is done so with no thought or justification? It seems to me you're the one lacking in critical thinking skills.
Problems with sex outside of marriage:
1. Most single parent families live at the poverty level or below. This leads to lowered life expectations and lost opportunities for most kids in that environment. Yes, some do succeed, but they are the exception, not the rule.
2. Sexual promiscuity has led to the explosion of STD's that could never have happened in a world without sex outside of marriage. How many lives are lost and billions are spent due to HIV/AIDS alone? HIV/AIDS as societal problem would never have existed without sexual promiscuity as it can only be spread through sexual contact.
3. Young single mothers, or even guys who became fathers too early, who once had dreams for their lives that they will never reach because of a moment of passion. It's a very common story.
4. Kids abused because of the frustration level of single/young parents who must raise their children in very tough financial situations that would not exist if they had not had sex, and do not have the maturity to deal with the situation as they became a parent at far too young an age.
5. Government resources being used to support people who would otherwise be supporting themselves had they not had a child outside of marriage. I'm not saying it's bad that single mothers/parents get help, only that the entire situation could not exist without the practice of having sex outside of marriage.
6. Men and women look at sex differently. What a man can leave behind with little or no emotional issues can, and often times will, cause great emotional harm to a woman.
That's just a few of the moral/ethical justifications for restricting sex outside of marriage. There are more, but these few are enough to show logical reasons exist as to why at least some religions have moral objections to sex outside of marriage.
Have so many of you been asleep for the last fifteen years? Since 1996 you are ineligible for federal welfare unless you're working or disabled. Or are a giant multi billion dollar corporation.
And I hate to tell you this, but the worst paying jobs are also the most disgusting jobs. Guess whose doing those jobs? Yep, mostly black people. I don't know where you get your bigoted ideas from, GTFO slashdot and go back to Stormfront where you belong.
I think you ought to watch the TV show Dirty Jobs. You'll see the most disgusting, dirtiest jobs are split pretty evenly by race. Black people have no monopoly on having jobs that require them to work in conditions that are just plain filthy and disgusting. To even suggest that blacks are the only ones doing nasty jobs shows that you have a rather tenuous grasp of the facts.
When I was still in school I had one of the nastiest jobs you can have every summer. I scraped moldy seed and dried mud off the inside of 4'x4'x4' metal bins during the months of July and August for an alfalfa seed company when they were getting ready for harvest.
Ever worked inside of a metal box that's been sitting in the sun all day when it's 100 degrees in the shade? It's like sitting in an oven. The sweat runs off you and mixes with the mold, dirt, and alfalfa seeds and sprouts, that fall on you while you're scraping the inside of a bin so hot if you don't wear heavy leather gloves, a long-sleeved shirt, full length pants, and knee pads, the contact with the bin will blister your skin in less than an hour. Plus, as an added bonus, you get to breathe that wonderful concoction you create when scraping the inside of those bins.
You go home at night with a muddy face and your pants and shirt stiff with dried mud from your sweat mixing with crap you scraped from the bottoms and sides of the bins. Your nose is so full of the junk that you had to breathe inside those bins that the first few times you blow it everything comes out black.
Driving by that same business 30+ years later it's still mostly white boys out there doing that same job. There's also a lot more black people living in the area now than there were when I was a teenager. If your racist view was correct then not only would I have never done that job, but the only people I'd see out there now doing that absolutely nasty job would be black people, and that's simply not the case.
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The thing is, the songwriters have already been paid - by the radio station. If it's BBC radio, we've already paid for that music out of our annual licence fee, or it's a commercial station with adverts. Every person in that store has the right to listen to that station already as the broadcast fees have already been paid.
Now that it's suddenly being able to be listened to while on a store premises, it's a 'new' public performance and more money needs to be paid. It's double dipping for the same performance.
Exactly. This is no different than a farmer selling his produce to a grocery store, and then charging the store's customers who buy his produce for eating it.
So MS doesn't have any motivation to drive users back to IE? MS doesn't have a history of screwing with technologies created by others so that technology will either be not used, or used only on Windows? Tell me you really believe that....
And MS couldn't have created the plugin at the user level rather than at a system wide level? You're really telling me that MS just sort of accidentally created this plugin system wide rather than at the user level? It's just unintended consequences that the plugin just happened to be next to impossible to remove by the average user....
If you really believe all that there's a bridge in Massachusetts that I'll sell to you for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah, this is all Mozilla's fault. They didn't proactively stop MS from messing with their users, so they're the ones at fault. Not MS. They're just doing what they always do. Nah. MS shouldn't be held responsible for that. Anything MS can do is always the right thing to do.
The unstated premise behind your logic is really something. MS never does anything wrong. It's always somebody else's fault when MS is the one screwing with users of third party software.
Even then much of what you're able to hear depends on the quality of your amp and speakers and how much distortion they add.
Play a good recording through a lousy audio system and much of the sound quality is lost. Play that same recording with a good, distortion-free amp, and quality speakers designed to work with that amp, and the music comes alive.
You're setting up a straw man and then knocking it down.
MS has both a history of malicious behavior, and motivation to insert some of their technology into Firefox which they can then later withdraw to make Firefox look bad so they could drive users back towards IE.
Adobe has no motivation to pull their Flash technology out of Firefox. What would be the point? So they could drive users and web site creators towards Silverlight and thus cut their own throats?
Besides, Adobe didn't/doesn't install their Flash plugin into Firefox without specific user request, nor do they ever disable the user's ability to uninstall/disable it. MS stuffed their plugin into Firefox through their own update service and then disabled the ability of the user to get rid of it. That is not behavior that will generate trust. MS does not have the right to do that. Do they have the capability? Yes. But just because you can do something doesn't make it right, nor the right thing to do.
Doing what MS did is engaging in the type of behavior that creates distrust and suspicion in anyone who sees what they did, as if they actually needed to engage in more of it be distrusted, disliked, and seen as manipulative.
As your post so eloquently says, you've never been bullied. You've just seen it, and years later seen that people have recovered enough to lead a "normal" life.
That's a real statement of ignorance. How do you know what that person "could" have been without being bullied? How do you know they still don't suffer from the effects even though YOU think, from a great distance, that they have fully recovered.
And, no, not everyone is a bully. Yes, we all have disputes with other people. Yes, we all have people we don't like. But, everyone bullies someone? That's a large stretch.
As far as Columbine, all the kids admitted that those guys were bullied on a pretty constant basis. Does that mean that everyone would/could respond the same way? No. I didn't even come close to saying that. I pointed to it as one of the possible outcomes from extended bullying. To ignore it as a possible outcome is stupid.
I can also see that you have never been bullied/abused on a regular basis. You have no idea of the anger that can fester. You've never experienced it yet think you are competent to understand it. I can assure you, from personal experience, that if you've never lived what some of the victims go through, you can never come close to understanding the effects.
Here you go again with your assumptions. How can any one person keep on making so many wrong assumptions?
What makes you assume that my granddaughter was "teased"? Hell, every chance I get I tease her. That wasn't the problem. She was harassed and bullied unmercifully. It went on for a long time. It lasted for months and happened every day. There was no "teasing" involved.
Also, don't try to instruct me on what happens when someone is bullied. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My older brother constantly bullied me my entire life until I slapped his face and wanted to fight him when I was in my 20's. I then moved away and stopped all contact with him. In response he wrote letters telling me that I am everything that's wrong with America.
When I was 3, and my brother was more twice my age and size, he bullied me into pissing on an electric fence. You don't know what pain is until you've done that. It's something you never forget. I also can't tell you how many times he would bully me into doing something and then go tell the old man what I'd done so I'd get whipped.
When I was in the 1st grade my old man forced me to shit my pants by refusing to stop somewhere so I could use the bathroom, and then tried to force me to get out of the car and mingle with my classmates at our destination. That same year he also whipped me and threw me out of the house one night for telling him that there's no difference between using dice and spinner to play a board game. If using dice was gambling then so was using a spinner. They both were a "game" of chance. Yes, I really did have that conceptual argument with him at 7 years of age.
He'd also laugh and have a good time watching my brother bully me. Then he'd punish me when I'd fight back. He'd punish me every time I fought back, even when a bully's parents said he'd gotten what he deserved because they'd seen what happened.
I know very well the effects of abuse and bullying. I've lived them. I also know the amount of effort and length of time involved in getting over it.
My entire family set me up to be a victim, just like what's happened to my granddaughter. So, when you say victims don't really need extra support and protection you haven't a clue. You don't know how many times as a kid I'd cry myself to sleep at night wishing someone, somewhere, cared enough to help me. You have never seen the massive depression in my granddaughters eyes either.
So, do I know enough about the problem of bullying and vicious harassment to understand the problem? You bet I do. I know exactly what the victims go through. I know exactly how cruel people can be and to what depths of viciousness they will sink.
The punishment needs to fit the crime. You try screwing up someone's life just because you enjoy being an asshole? You pay big time. It's only fair and equitable. It's justice. It is anything but fair that the victims are the only ones paying a price while their abusers walk the streets and are free do the same thing to others.
Lastly, what makes you think I think we need more laws? I've never said that. I've said we need to punish the bullies and stop the harassment. All that takes is the enforcement of our existing laws. All that requires is that people care enough act, to stand up and be counted and not just brush aside the bullying and vicious harassment that goes on as a minor problem. The damages are real. They can last for many years.
Stop assuming psychological harm isn't as damaging as physical harm. In many ways it's far worse. And, yes, it's a cold, brutal world out there, and the victims of bullying and abuse know that far better than anyone else. They also need more help in dealing with it than anyone who has never lived in their shoes.
An entire generation or more has been raised to believe in its own innate and unearned importance...
That is quite a sweeping generalization. I am not sure which generation you are referring to, but if it is my own (I am 23) I would be inclined to disagree with you via a caveat. I will agree that, in general, there are quite a few folks who fit the description that you just posted. Nonetheless, I would caveat that there are some of us, in every generation (not just my own) that know without a doubt that we do not have unlimited entitlement and rights. There are even some of us that know that the Law is not an institution to be used for the abuse of personal gain. In fact, some of us, in every generation, outright abhor the strange exponential increase in the complexity of the Law in general.
So, in principle, I agree that there are quite a few folk out there that think the way you mentioned, using the term, 'an entire generation' really does disrespect those of us that try to remain rational, calm, pragmatic, and realistic. Please, don't lump entire groups of people together as if we are all just walking stereotypes to be typified into a particular Aristotelian category. There are always shades of gray.
Great post. I'd mod you up, but I'm active in this discussion.
I'm glad to see there at least a few young people like you coming down the pike. You belong to what seems to be a dying breed amongst the sweeping sense of entitlement that so many young people have, but every once in a while I am very pleasantly surprised when one of you announce yourselves.
Your parents should, rightly, be very proud of their child.
And so to prove your superiority and show just how bad "baby boomers" are you do exactly what you accuse them of doing. You make large generalizations that have nothing to do with reality--all baby boomers are selfish jerks--as the only reason they could disagree with you on global warming is because they're idiots and selfish, and you couldn't possibly be wrong.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is a lot of people that don't buy into global warming, including a lot of scientists. Of course, you'll say they are just selfish baby boomers who have been bought off, but again, that's just another generalization on your part because you have no proof of that whatsoever.
So, you feel sorry for her, but don't think she deserves any protection from bullying and vicious personal harassment that affects her far more than someone who's never been abused. Like I said, you're a real class act. In your eyes bullies and assholes are deserving of more protection than their victims. You do know that's a classic sign of an abuser don't you?
Also, once again, your assumptions are completely wrong about me, personally. Both my wife and I have turned her dad, and her mother, in to the cops and DSHS as her mother suffers from battered wife syndrome and we wanted to get custody of her and her 5 siblings.
Nobody in the legal system did anything. The end result of making legal complaints was to make it so we couldn't see our granddaughter for a few years. Her parents wouldn't let her, or her siblings, get anywhere near us if they knew we were in town. I still can't see my grandkids 5 years later because of her dad's hatred for me, but at least my wife gets to see them once in a blue moon now.
You sure do make a lot of assumptions. How you can so consistently make wrong ones is pretty amazing. You must practice a lot.
Your concepts of right and wrong and belief that morality should be legislated cause me fear and anxiety. My lawyer will be contacting you shortly. Hope you like working at gas stations.
Nice straw man.
I never said morality, or even concepts of right and wrong, should be legislated as that is impossible. What I've been saying is that behavior that is harmful to people should be punished. If parents won't/can't teach their children that such behavior is completely unacceptable then the law needs to punish it for the good of society.
We already have many laws with this thought in mind. Assault and battery laws are just one example. This idea that psychological damage is less harmful to the victim than physical damage is completely bogus. In many cases psychological harm lasts far, far longer than the effects any physical injury, and is much harder to overcome.
Ummm.... As I'm a grandparent I've obviously had at least as much, if not more, experience raising kids than you have. I've seen behavior patterns instilled many times over.
And, yes, it's a parent's responsibility to raise their children to respect other people. If their kids do not respect others, it's learned behavior just like it's learned behavior when they do learn to respect others from their parent's training.
This training has to start early in a child's life and be unfailingly consistent. You can't wait until they reach the teenage years, teach the lessons haphazardly, and expect to get any kind of results.
Hell, when I was in my teens I rejected a lot of my parents values and started partying, but I never "unlearned" the idea that other people are to be treated the same I want to be treated. That's just basic, common decency that must be learned at a young age, and those are the values that a child doesn't reject as they become a part of their core character.
It's only those mixed messages that parents send their kids that are normally rejected. I know that for a fact from my experience raising step children and from my own life.
Yea, but it was a 16 year old girl doing it!
Suspend her from school! Send her to summer school! Whack her with a misdemeanor and community service!
Instead, you'd rather send her to jail, make her pay $10,000, and have a felony convicion?
Let me tell you, I had my share of bullies picking on me in school, particularly middle school or freshman of High School. I fucking hated it, and it could be bad sometimes. I don't want them to have convictions on their records for things they did when they were 15. I'm friends with some of them now!
I realize things have changed somewhat with the Internet and stuff like that, but c'mon, don't be a cold bastard shithead.
Yeah, the poor bullies need to be protected. Just think, they might have their own lives ruined, as well as making many other kids lives miserable.
As to you being friends with people who bullied you when you were a kid, that's well and good. But, what about those kids who never recover from the bullying? That is not an uncommon result. How about those that get so sick of it that they start killing? Columbine ring a bell?
This is not something that is "victimless" or has only temporary results.
That this person caused major damage to granddaughter. Yes, she was vulnerable because of her father, but that doesn't make the damage done to her any less real. It makes it worse.
Anyway, I guess what you're saying is that if a kid is so stupid as to have chosen an abusive parent that they should be just left to suffer. The fact that they have been set up to be victim by their own parent lets all other assholes who abuse them off the hook.
Great logic. You're a real class act.
Tell that to the cops/prosecutors and see how far you get. They, not me, are the ones claiming that the "old" laws don't/won't work. I, personally, don't see a need for new laws and said nothing about us needing new laws, but I do see a need for the legal system to be used to stop online harassment.
I was simply replying to the idea that parents are going to be the resource that will stop the harassment. Parents have the responsibility, but many completely shirk it, to teach their children to behave decently.
The only reason deterrence doesn't work is because it's not applied consistently.
If everyone knew that every time they indulged in negative behavior they would get punished for it they would avoid it. However, if they see lots of people getting away with the negative behavior and a only a few being punished for it, then no, they won't think that they will be punished and so deterrence doesn't work.
It's well-established fact that occasional punishment only increases bad behavior as the perp always thinks that THIS time they won't get caught and punished. That doesn't mean that deterrence doesn't work. It only means that "occasional" deterrence doesn't work.
See my post above. These attacks go far beyond "spreading rumors". They are highly personal, vicious attacks that do a lot of harm to the person being attacked.
I guess you don't observe much of what goes on in our society these days. One of my granddaughters has been a victim of this type of harassment and it's done her a lot of harm.
She's a shy, mild-mannered, nice kid who doesn't go out of her way to harass others, or do other people harm. She also is not a very self confident person as her father is an abusive asshole. So, the vicious personal attacks that came her way really harmed her. Her entire personality changed for months. She didn't want to go to school. Her grades suffered badly. It's been more than a year now and she still isn't back to the person she was before all this started.
What did she do wrong? Nothing. Some guy that another girl liked, but was not dating, started paying attention to her. As shy as she is I know, as would anyone else who knows her, that she wasn't the assertive one in the relationship with the guy in question. However, none of that mattered to the other girl. This gal, who wasn't even dating the guy, was going to do her best to destroy my granddaughter just because he began talking to her.
There has to be consequences for this type of negative behavior. Nobody has the right to screw with someone else's life like that. The nasty girl's parent's won't do anything. The school system won't do anything. I'd get thrown in jail for kicking the little bitch's ass. So, what's left to deter this type of behavior? The legal system is the only avenue left.
Harassment online should be no different than harassment offline. If I send an email threating to break someone's leg how is that any different than a message over the phone or in person? Why do people make a big deal that otherwise illegal behavior is somehow legal online? Intimidation, coercion and other forms of threatening behavior are all readily accepted as illegal offline, this case has absolutely no defense in the first amendment (and I'm usually the one defending it).
Why do people get upset about harassment over the internet? Because it's way out of line. It's rampant and the police/prosecutors refuse to do anything about it. It's also worse online because of the difficulty in finding out who is responsible for it.
It's much riskier to walk up to a person and begin insulting them than it is to make online slurs as in person the possibility of getting your ass kicked for being a jackass is much, much greater. The perceived anonymity of the internet creates an atmosphere in which assholes are much more likely to think there will be no consequences for their behavior and so cross behavioral lines they wouldn't cross in person.
I agree with you that this is no laughing matter. It's libel, and defamation of character. And, I DO agree that this girl should be punished if this went on ruthlessly for months.
But a felony conviction for a kid? She'll live with that on her criminal record for the rest of her life and she'll have a hard time getting good work..
This girl's parents should have thought about this. It's their responsibility to teach their kid decent values and respect for other people. Why should she not have her life ruined when that's exactly what she tried to do someone else? If she has so little respect for other people that she engaged in this behavior at her age, then what makes you think she will ever learn differently unless she suffers some pretty severe consequences?
She's old enough now to know the difference between right and wrong, and she obviously doesn't care about it. That's something that needs to be learned early in life--by the age of 5 or 6, or it's often never learned at all.
I'm not so sure laws needed to be made for something that amounts to name calling. If the name calling extends to harassment we already have laws in place.
The only fix to this problem is proper parrenting and teaching kids how to respect and really communicate with one another. Even removing anonymity doesn't fix this problem (and I am completely against any attempt to remove it). I am aware that Anecdotes aren't evidence but I've been "bullied" online (if you want to call it that) by girls who went to the same school as I, they were well aware I knew who they were and they knew who I was. How did I respond? I walked up to them the next day and kindly asked them to continue calling me names now that we are face to face. They just slithered away muttering half apologies and never messaged me again.
How is this supposed to work when the parents are the ones teaching their kids to be assholes? My son-in-law actively teaches his kids to be assholes. He thinks it great to be an asshole and thinks his kids need to follow in his footsteps.
Add to parents like him those parents who just don't care enough about their kids to discipline them, and then further add those parents who think that anyone who crosses their precious snowflake, even when their snowflake is the problem, is there to be abused. This isn't even taking into account those parents who are too afraid to discipline their kids.
Society has long since degenerated past the point of being able to trust all, maybe even most, parents to want/be_able to instill positive character traits in their kids. I hate the idea of more government, but there has to be some way of making sure there are consequences for negative behavior as there are most definitely a lot of parents who will never do that job.
Why should I pay for using the cloud when I need to have local backup anyway? The cloud just an extra expense, with no added advantage. It makes no sense to me, especially when a high percentage of system admins admit to acting less than ethically in their daily job-related activities.
Haven't read the rest the previous discussion but...
of course there are good evidence based reasons for abstinence. The problem is that these are not the reasons that religions use. The reason they use is that "god says so".
If the reasons were known, instead of divine edicts, we could modify our moral positions when conditions change. For instance, today there is no reason any woman who does not wish too should get pregnant. We have extrememly effective birth control these days -- a very recent development. Our religious morals have not caught up .
In a very backwards form of reasoning, many religions now say that birth control is immoral.... only because it would invalidate the moral rules that they have internalized without question for so long.
summary: of course most "moral values" have reasonable evidence based rationales. The problem comes when we do not understand that these are real reasons, and instead attribute the moral rules it some absolute rigid moral standard.
Ummmm.... In my experience, you're wrong about your assumptions, and so was the original poster to whom I replied. I grew up going to a Christian church and not once were moral standards such as no extramarital sex, i.e. the 10 Commandments, ever said to exist "just because God said so".
I learned, from the church as a kid and agree with it as an adult, that God's rules have always been for protecting those people who follow Him from the consequences that come from initiating evil/immoral actions. Take a look at the last 6 commandments and you'll see what I mean. They are designed to keep us out of a lot of trouble with our fellow man. Follow those six principles and you'll never find yourself in a situation in which you are causing a problem with anyone you know.
The first 4 are similar, but much harder for someone who doesn't believe in God to understand that the same rationale lies behind them too, as they define the individual's relationship with God.
Are there some churches that do say that their moral standards are there "just because God says so"? Probably, as so many people seem to have that mistaken perspective. However, I've never been in one that actually taught that. I'd also say that any church that says God's standards are arbitrary doesn't really understand who God is.
Hmmm.... And here I could have sworn people were mocking MS just for applying for this patent, not for being awarded a patent.
Or one religion may call it morally wrong to have sex out of wedlock while another may not. These are morals because they are taken on faith without thought or justification - the religion simply says so and it's believed. But you certainly cannot say that sex out of wedlock is a universal truth.
Hmmm.... No moral or ethical problems with sex outside of marriage? Any acceptance of sex outside of marriage being a moral or ethical problem is done so with no thought or justification? It seems to me you're the one lacking in critical thinking skills.
Problems with sex outside of marriage:
1. Most single parent families live at the poverty level or below. This leads to lowered life expectations and lost opportunities for most kids in that environment. Yes, some do succeed, but they are the exception, not the rule.
2. Sexual promiscuity has led to the explosion of STD's that could never have happened in a world without sex outside of marriage. How many lives are lost and billions are spent due to HIV/AIDS alone? HIV/AIDS as societal problem would never have existed without sexual promiscuity as it can only be spread through sexual contact.
3. Young single mothers, or even guys who became fathers too early, who once had dreams for their lives that they will never reach because of a moment of passion. It's a very common story.
4. Kids abused because of the frustration level of single/young parents who must raise their children in very tough financial situations that would not exist if they had not had sex, and do not have the maturity to deal with the situation as they became a parent at far too young an age.
5. Government resources being used to support people who would otherwise be supporting themselves had they not had a child outside of marriage. I'm not saying it's bad that single mothers/parents get help, only that the entire situation could not exist without the practice of having sex outside of marriage.
6. Men and women look at sex differently. What a man can leave behind with little or no emotional issues can, and often times will, cause great emotional harm to a woman.
That's just a few of the moral/ethical justifications for restricting sex outside of marriage. There are more, but these few are enough to show logical reasons exist as to why at least some religions have moral objections to sex outside of marriage.
Have so many of you been asleep for the last fifteen years? Since 1996 you are ineligible for federal welfare unless you're working or disabled. Or are a giant multi billion dollar corporation.
And I hate to tell you this, but the worst paying jobs are also the most disgusting jobs. Guess whose doing those jobs? Yep, mostly black people. I don't know where you get your bigoted ideas from, GTFO slashdot and go back to Stormfront where you belong.
I think you ought to watch the TV show Dirty Jobs. You'll see the most disgusting, dirtiest jobs are split pretty evenly by race. Black people have no monopoly on having jobs that require them to work in conditions that are just plain filthy and disgusting. To even suggest that blacks are the only ones doing nasty jobs shows that you have a rather tenuous grasp of the facts.
When I was still in school I had one of the nastiest jobs you can have every summer. I scraped moldy seed and dried mud off the inside of 4'x4'x4' metal bins during the months of July and August for an alfalfa seed company when they were getting ready for harvest.
Ever worked inside of a metal box that's been sitting in the sun all day when it's 100 degrees in the shade? It's like sitting in an oven. The sweat runs off you and mixes with the mold, dirt, and alfalfa seeds and sprouts, that fall on you while you're scraping the inside of a bin so hot if you don't wear heavy leather gloves, a long-sleeved shirt, full length pants, and knee pads, the contact with the bin will blister your skin in less than an hour. Plus, as an added bonus, you get to breathe that wonderful concoction you create when scraping the inside of those bins.
You go home at night with a muddy face and your pants and shirt stiff with dried mud from your sweat mixing with crap you scraped from the bottoms and sides of the bins. Your nose is so full of the junk that you had to breathe inside those bins that the first few times you blow it everything comes out black.
Driving by that same business 30+ years later it's still mostly white boys out there doing that same job. There's also a lot more black people living in the area now than there were when I was a teenager. If your racist view was correct then not only would I have never done that job, but the only people I'd see out there now doing that absolutely nasty job would be black people, and that's simply not the case.